Hostile Noises Over O`hare

Republican legislators outlined measures Tuesday aimed at pressuring the City of Chicago to comply with initiatives for reducing jet noise around O`Hare International Airport.

For effect, the news conference to announce the proposals, which include shifting control of O`Hare from the city to a regional airport authority, was intermittently drowned out by the roar of jets overhead.

Some suburban officials frankly acknowledged that Chicago Democrats were unlikely to surrender control of a jewel like city-owned O`Hare, a haven for patronage employment and lucrative contracts, without a legislative donnybrook. A legislative initiative about 30 years ago empowered Chicago to operate O`Hare.

They said the proposals are aimed at forcing the city into concessions on a long list of suburban demands for abating jet noise that afflicts hundreds of thousands of suburbanites daily.

They also pledged to spearhead a drive to ask voters in a referendum next November whether a third major airport should be developed for the Chicago area. Joliet officials have suggested that the area around the Will County city would be an ideal location.

``Everything with the City of Chicago in terms of next year is a matter of leverage,`` said House Minority Leader Lee Daniels, looking toward the spring legislative session. He was joined by a group of suburban Illinois House members and Rep. Roger McAuliffe, a Republican from Chicago`s Northwest Side.

``In other words,`` Daniels said, ``until they need us they aren`t willing to talk. And they`re going to need us.``

Daniels, a Republican from Elmhurst, recalled that GOP votes were critical last month in fashioning a legislative bailout of the McCormick Place annex. Daniels is remembered for a hard-line stance that postponed adjournment of the General Assembly in July until Gov. James Thompson`s pork barrel

``Build Illinois`` package was passed.

The proposals outlined Tuesday represent the second stage in efforts to increase pressure on Chicago since the city Department of Aviation announced that it would not share with the suburbs final control over a noise-abatement study ordered by the federal government as part of the current airport expansion. The city`s aviation department operates O`Hare along with Midway Airport and Meigs Field.

Ten days ago, officers of the Suburban O`Hare Commission, a coalition of 16 governmental units surrounding the airport, called on suburbanites to organize to fight jet noise and air pollution.

Daniels and other House Republicans, many of whose districts include areas affected by O`Hare jet noise, proposed laws to:

-- Establish a regional airport authority board composed of city and suburban members. The authority, which would be similar to the Regional Transportation Authority, would set policies on operating the area`s major airports and would employ a professional staff. Daniels insisted that the idea was not to kill O`Hare but to spread traffic to Midway and a third major airport. The RTA is controlled by suburban members.

-- Impose a jet fuel tax of 2 to 5 cents per gallon to fund the new airport authority.

-- Ban the landing of supersonic jets at O`Hare, a rule that would be similar to an ordinance adopted earlier this year by the Chicago City Council barring the supersonic Concorde.

-- Offer a state income tax credit for homeowners who insulate their homes against jet noise.

-- Ban permanently new runways at O`Hare. Daniels asserted that a year 2000 plan for the airport has a new runway pointed at Elmhurst and Park Ridge. -- Perform a comprehensive cancer-hazard and risk-assessment study of areas affected by the airport.

-- Establish a citizen noise hot line. Chicago now operates a hot line, but suburban officials have long complained that it is understaffed.

-- Develop a permanent noise-monitoring system. The current system is temporary.

Mayor Harold Washington declined to comment until he can review the proposals.

The news conference was staged in Schiller Park outside Washington Elementary School, which Chicago helped to soundproof. Jets taking off every 30 seconds drowned out comments from Daniels and the others.

A nearby resident said the legislative effort ``was long overdue.``

``We`re not able to use our yard during the summer because of the noise,`` said Frances Favia, who lives across from the school and who watched the conference from her dining room window. ``I have a chandelier in the dining room that rattles and the whole house shakes each time a plane goes overhead.``

She complained that the noise problem has worsened as use of O`Hare has increased each year. Airport officials estimate that this year will be the airport`s busiest, with more than 800,000 landings and takeoffs.

Even though the proposal for a third major airport in the Chicago area has been considered for many years, formal plans have not been drafted. Daniels suggested that voter approval in an advisory referendum would help put even more pressure on elected officials for a noise solution.

State Rep. Loleta Didrickson (R., Homewood) noted that a third airport would take 15 years to plan and build. She said a new airport probably would have to encompass about 20,000 acres to prevent noise problems similar to those around O`Hare.